


A Mind To Make Sight

by LayALioness



Category: The 100 (TV), Tithe Series - Holly Black
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Bellamy is Kaye, Clarke is Roiben, Lexa is Salarial, Monty is Corny, Punk!Bellamy, Wells is Ethine
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-04-08 01:43:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4285860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LayALioness/pseuds/LayALioness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The girl squints up at him and then snorts, incredulous. “That they should send a mortal to do their dirty work,” she snaps, obviously insulted. “Distasteful. We used to have rules for this sort of thing, you know.”</p><p>She sounds awfully proper for someone bleeding to death in the wood. Amiable, even. She cranes her neck to look at him better. “Come down,” she orders. “It hurts my neck to look at you.”</p><p>Bellamy fights back a grin, because she is a bleeding, tiny blonde girl ordering him around and it’s funny. “I don’t take orders from you, princess,” he shoots, but he crouches down anyway. He pretends it’s because standing was hurting his knees. She looks at him, surprised and then wary.</p><p>“I’m no princess,” she mutters, and then winces, glaring down at the branch as though she might make it disappear with pure willpower. Bellamy honestly doesn’t doubt that she could.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Clearly I'm on a bit of a faerie kick. Oh, well, sorry not sorry.  
> If you haven't read the Ironside series by Holly Black, you should. But even if you haven't, you'll understand this fic.  
> I suck at one-shots, which is what this was originally going to be, so instead you get a tentative ten-shot, you're welcome.
> 
> Title from "Stranger Than Earth" by Purity Ring.
> 
> Here's a playlist for this story, if you're interested;  
> http://8tracks.com/tierannasaurusrex/leave-this-world-behind

Bellamy finished the last of his cigarette and dropped it in Graham’s beer. He’d gulped half of it down before hopping onstage for the set, and Bellamy knows there’s a fifty-fifty chance he’ll remember and try to finish it before leaving. It’ll be a good test on how drunk the man is; see if he’ll swallow the butt whole.

Beside him on her bar stool, Octavia gives him a knowing smirk and sips at her Shirley Temple. She’d strode right in and ordered a rum sour, but Bellamy had just rolled his eyes to the bartender and messed up her hair. She’s only kind of pretending to study her geometry textbook; mostly she’s drawing mustaches on all the shapes.

Onstage, B-17 is packing up their equipment a little droopily—it was a bad set, and they know it, but the manager doesn’t seem to care since everyone bought a few beers and some even danced a little.

“So how old are you kids, anyway?” the bartender asks, and his voice isn’t at all pointed, but Bellamy still tenses a little warily.

“Not old enough,” he shoots, angling himself between the bar and Octavia with a meaningful stare. The bartender just rolls his eyes a little and holds up both hands, one still clutching the wipe-down cloth, before turning away to stack glasses.

Octavia snorts. “He wasn’t hitting on me,” she says mildly. “More like, fishing to see if he should call protective services.”

Bellamy just shrugs, sipping at a beer one of the guys from the band ordered forever ago—it’s gone flat by now, and lukewarm, but he swallows it down anyway. Bellamy is a professional at consuming truly disgusting shit.

Protective services has been called on them a few times by now, but Aurora always manages to talk their way out of it, or bribe them, and then the Blake’s have packed up and moved into a newer, shittier apartment a few blocks away to start over. They haven’t had any surprise government visits since Bellamy’s dropped out of school, and he sincerely hopes it stays that way. With his new job at the Chinese place, they’re making some actual rent money—not just relying on Aurora’s sporadic gigs in grungy bars and nightclubs, along with whatever else she does with strange men—sometimes women—in the bathrooms, to get through the month.

He doesn’t need to worry about O maybe being taken away for _her greater good_ , to be shuffled through group homes, leered at by foster dads or used as free daycare for foster parents with too many kids already. No, thanks.

Graham does, in the end, come back for the beer. He takes a long pull, with Bellamy only looking a little obvious as he watches, before spitting the whole mouthful out on the bar. The bartender gives them a collective glare, and goes to fetch a mop, while Graham stares at the siblings distrustfully.

Graham is the latest in Aurora’s long list of too-young-for-her asshole boyfriends, and her children hate him pretty much equally. At least he’s just a normal asshole, not a sleazy asshole, or sadistic asshole like some of the others.

They still hate him, though.

“Get your shit,” he growls, sliding the bottle away from him in disdain. “We’re leaving.” Then he goes to talk to some guy wearing sunglasses with shades the color of a cat’s eyes.

Octavia hops from her stool, draining the last of her drink and shoving her books in her bag all in one fluid movement. She’s recently fourteen, hovering somewhere between graceful and awkward, and Bellamy loves her.

“Your hair looks like crap,” he says fondly, toying with the bangs she tried to give herself with Graham’s straight razor. She scowls back at him and bats his hand away.

“You’re a loser,” she shoots back with a shrug as if to say, _nothing to be done about it, I guess_.

Aurora drifts over, make up a little smeared and hair a little sweaty but otherwise happy, like she always is after a gig, no matter how shitty. Aurora Blake is an unfailing optimist, who likes to masquerade as a cynic because she thinks it makes her seem tough.

She has an unlit cigarette dangling between her lips, and loops an arm around each of her children. “How are my babies?” she coos, and then barks out a laugh when they predictably groan.

She gives Bellamy a smile, made lopsided by the cigarette. “Light my fire?”

Bellamy huffs a sigh, but digs his almost empty box of L&Js—Newports are too expensive—along with one of his many pilfered matchboxes, swiped from dive bars all over the city. He lights his own first, and Aurora leans in to press hers to it, saying “Cigarette kiss!” with a smile.

“Can I have one?” Octavia asks mildly, and Bellamy swallows the quick _no_ in his throat. He’s not supposed to mother her when their actual mother is within hearing range.

Aurora gives her daughter a raised brow. “No lung cancer till fifteen,” she decides. “You finish your homework?”

Octavia gives a halfhearted shrug, which probably means no, but Aurora doesn’t press her on it. She probably thinks it’s a miracle O still even _goes_ to school, which pisses Bellamy off a little. Octavia’s a good student, honor roll and straight B’s in all her classes, even Earth Science which she fucking _hates_ , but he can’t remember the last time Aurora made it to any of the award ceremonies or teacher conferences. It was always only him, and he’s a little bitter about it. Not because he doesn’t want to be there for his sister, but because Aurora should want to be there, too.

Aurora isn’t the type of selfish that comes with being mean; she just tends to forget about other people until it’s too late. Sometimes he thinks she only had kids because she kept forgetting about them until it was too late to get an abortion.

It’s a shitty thought, but. It’s not like he’s ever _said_ it.

Graham slides up to them, a little more shady than usual, and says “You all ready?” which is a little weird. Weird enough for Bellamy to notice, anyway. He still sounds like an asshole, but not like his usual asshole self. More like an echo.

“Yeah,” Aurora nods, arm still looped through Octavia’s, and they turn towards the door in tandem as Graham’s arm shoots out.

Bellamy barely manages to shove him back in time, frozen by shock for a moment, and the knife clatters to the floor in a gleam of silver blade and blue-and-black handle. Graham stares at it a little dumbly at first, and then Mbege and Diggs are tackling him down while the bartender calls the cops, and they all have to give a statement before packing their things up in off-brand garbage bags and hiking up to the bus station. It’s all very surreal, but the moment Bellamy can’t stop remembering is the flash of yellow from the stranger’s glasses—almost like it wasn’t the lenses at all, but his actual eyes.

“We’re staying with your grandmother for a while,” Aurora says tiredly as they crawl on the greyhound. She’d spent the past two hours calling anyone she could think of, looking for a place to crash, and Bellamy knows that if she’s settling for his grandmother in suburban New Jersey, she must not have had much luck.

Octavia’s pleased because it means she’ll get her own bed, but also a little ruffled because apparently they were in the middle of some big project in her history class, that she’s been working on for weeks. She’ll get over it, Bellamy knows, as soon as they’re out of the city. Once they can actually _breathe_ again.

“I figured you can go see that friend of yours,” Aurora offers. Octavia’s head is drooping dangerously against her shoulder, and he’s pretty sure she’s drooling through her shirt.

“Jasper,” Bellamy nods. At least, he thinks she means Jasper. He hopes she isn’t bringing up the imaginary friends thing again—he’s only just managed to push them to the back of his mind, and isn’t looking forward to being mocked regularly about _remember that time when you were little and you thought faeries lived in your backyard?_

It’s sort of a hard reputation to overcome.

“Yeah,” Aurora agrees. “The one you’re always emailing at the library.”

Bellamy thinks _always_ is probably a stretch; he and Jasper were friends as kids, mostly out of necessity; Jasper was bullied because he was scrawny with stained hand-me-downs, and Bellamy was bullied because he thought faeries lived in his backyard. They’ve tried to make it a point, over the years, to catch each other up every few months over MSN or, more recently, Facebook. Bellamy did spend a lot of time at the library, mostly rereading _The Iliad_ and all the summer reading lists he’s missed out on.

Gram is waiting for them at the bus stop, and helps them load up her Pontiac with their garbage bags, before driving at a brisk 35-mile per hours to her house, on the outskirts of a town straight out of a Bruce Springsteen song. Octavia chatters the whole way, filling her in on their life in Philly for the past seven years, carefully skipping over parts like when their car got broken into five times in the first three months, and when one of their mom’s flings had tried sneaking into Octavia’s bed (thankfully she’d already decided to sleep with Bellamy that night), or when Bellamy decided to drop out of high school to get a full time job because they needed the money, and the free food the restaurant tossed out each night. Instead, O sticks mostly to things like how well she’s doing in classes, and how Bellamy created a checklist that each of Aurora’s boyfriends have to meet before he’ll let her move in with them (he was drunk, and still mad about the last one’s wandering hands, and it turned out to be mostly useless anyway since she never really listened, but), and how he’s thinking of going to college for history (also while drunk and feeling particularly naïve enough to think any spare money they manage to collect could go towards something like his college education. If anything, it’ll go towards O’s.) Gram visibly relaxes and even thinly smiles as Octavia goes on.

Bellamy is pretty sure his fourteen-year-old little sister is basically a genius—but he’s not about to tell her that. She’s bigheaded enough as it is.

As soon as their bags have been hauled up the old farmhouse stairs, Bellamy heads out to Jasper’s.

“Can I come?” Octavia asks blandly, clearly anticipating the answer. He still says no.

In the city, he made it a point to hang out with his sister, which meant most of his classmates (while he was still in school) and peers in general often stopped hanging out with him. He was fine with it; he’d pick O over any of them every time, but also he knew he needed to spend that time watching out for her, because no one else would.

It’s different here—she has Gram, and she has Aurora now that she’s not so easily distracted by bright lights and grunge-punk, and twenty-year-olds in tight black clothes. And Bellamy’s pretty sure his sister isn’t going to be mugged or molested in blue collar suburbia, so.

Jasper lives in a trailer park just fifteen minutes from Gram’s house, if he walks quickly enough. The front yard of the Jordans’ home is bordered by a collection of kitschy garden gnomes dressed as Star Trek characters, and plastic flamingos bleached out by the sun. Bellamy shows up unannounced, which he’s a little uncomfortable with. When they were kids, he always showed up unannounced, but he hasn’t seen Jasper in seven years, so he’s not sure how much has changed.

The front door is open, and through the screen Bellamy can see Jasper’s scrawny bare legs slung over the end of the yard-sale corduroy sofa. He taps at the screen a little weakly, but Jasper calls out “Come on in!” so he does.

The inside of the trailer is every bit as novelty-cheap as the outside, and a few Star Trek needlepoint pillows are bullying Jasper to the far edge of the sofa. He doesn’t seem to mind, tapping away at an ancient Gameboy, until he glances up to see who exactly he’s let into his home, and a wide smile blooms on his face.

“Hey,” he says happily, scurrying upright to fling two skinny arms around Bellamy’s shoulders. In their time apart, Jasper has grown _up_ , but not at all _out_ , which gives the impression that someone held him at the ears and ankles and then stretched. “You didn’t say you were coming to visit!”

“Didn’t know,” Bellamy shrugs. “It was pretty spur of the moment.” He tells Jasper about Graham, and the police and the garbage bags and the ride to his Gram’s place. Jasper gives a long whistle at the end.

“ _All_ of that happened in one night?” he shakes his head. “That’s, like, definitely multiple-sittings-type stuff. Like, give a guy a breather.”

“Bellamy?” They turn to find Monty Green standing, uncertain in the hallway. He’s wearing some sort of uniform—bland white polo and cornflower blue vest—and looking baffled.

“Hey,” Bellamy waves awkwardly. He and Monty don’t really know each other that well; Monty had moved into town just two months before Bellamy left, but through Jasper’s emails he knows some pretty personal things about the other boy’s life that he’s not sure he should know.

Like how his father died of a heart attack when they were all fifteen, and Mrs. Green couldn’t afford their trailer anymore and had to move into assisted living, while Monty moved in with the Jordan’s. Or how Monty’s apparently some sort of technological genius that graduated three years early, and everyone thought he’d end up at MIT on a full ride or something, but in the end only got a half-scholarship and so couldn’t afford to go anyway, and now splits his time between working at an twenty-four convenience store, and the cheapest classes the community college offers.

“Hi,” Monty says warmly and only a little less awkward. He turns to Jasper, “I’m going to work; I’ll be back later.”

Jasper nods, not really tense but definitely reserved. “Yeah, okay. Have fun, I guess.”

Monty’s lips thin into a line. “Yeah. Nice to see you, Bellamy.” He leaves out the screen door.

Jasper hadn’t really said explicitly that he and Monty were no longer friends, but earlier that year his emails—which until then had largely consisted of _So Monty and I did this,_ or _Well Monty and I think that_ —had tapered off to nearly no mention of the boy, to the point where Bellamy thought he must have died, and this was some sort of weird grieving process. Eventually he asked about it, but Jasper only said “We’re just going in different directions,” which seemed like sort of a shitty reason to not be friends anymore, but. What did he know? His best friend was his kid sister, and she didn’t even _like_ him that much.

“Oh hey,” Jasper says mildly, but with the practiced sort of nonchalance that means he probably actually cares. “There’s this party tonight—wanna go? There’ll be _tons_ of girls there,” he waggles his eyebrows suggestively, but Jasper’s features are pretty extreme, so the whole thing comes off very cartoonish, and Bellamy laughs.

“Well, when you put it like that,” he jokes, but Jasper nods knowingly.

“I know, right? I should go into sales.”

He goes back to change sometime just before nightfall, mainly because he’s been wearing the same ripped jeans and band tee since the whole Graham incident, and he’s pretty sure they reek by now. Octavia wanders in as he’s digging through his garbage bags, and perches on her childhood bed.

“You’re going out,” she accuses, more amused than anything. In Philly he mostly worked, or hung around the dive bars with his mom and little sister—it didn’t leave much time for partying.

“Thought I’d try it,” he says, shrugging into a new, less stale band tee. He’s already changed his jeans, but they’re pretty much the same shade of black and have tears in all the same places, so he’s not sure it makes a difference. “See what all the fuss is about.”

“You’re so lame,” she snorts and flops back on the box spring. He’s already dragged the mattress onto the floor so his legs can stretch out, unhindered by the pink Barbie footboard. “Can I come?”

Bellamy snorts back at her and smacks a kiss to her cheek. “No teenage debauchery until fifteen,” he teases, and heads out.

The party Jasper was talking about turns out to be five bored teenagers getting drunk off bourbon and hurricane mix in the second floor of an abandoned accounting firm on the boardwalk. There are three girls—Monroe, who Bellamy thinks he recognizes from his elementary school days, Fox, and Harper, who Jasper is clearly half in love with. They swarm him, the way small-town kids always swarm anything new, and Jasper to his credit only seems a little jealous.

“So you’re from, like, the _city_ -city? Did you ever see anyone get stabbed?” “My mom’s boyfriend almost stabbed her,” he chirps, and takes a swig, letting them figure out if he’s kidding.

“I thought you were white—are you not white? What are you?” “I’m half Filipino,” Bellamy says, tipsy enough to not feel irritated. To be honest, he has no idea if it’s even true, but that’s what his mom told him when he got up the nerve to ask.

“So why the _hell_ did you come back to Ark?” “My mom’s boyfriend tried to stab her,” he deadpans, and they all shift a little awkwardly, not sure if he’s _really_ kidding.

“Wait,” Monroe declares, “Are you the kid that believed in _faeries_?”

Bellamy fights a wince. “That’s me,” he says, finishing off the bottle. Jasper looks a little apologetic in the corner.

“I used to think you were so cool,” Monroe admits, and he looks at her, confused. Literally _no one_ thought he was cool. “A boy, believing in faeries and talking about them and shit. That like, never happens.” She shrugs. “I really admired you sticking up for them.”

“Uh,” Bellamy shifts, a little uncomfortable; he doesn’t really do well with praise. He doesn’t really do well with anything but dry sarcasm and outright assholery. “Thanks.”

“I think you’re still cool,” Harper smiles from her perch on Jasper’s lap, and her eyes on Bellamy are a little heated, which _definitely_ makes him uncomfortable. Harper’s a cute girl, but Jasper is Bellamy’s only actual friend in Ark, and he doesn’t really feel like fucking that up.

“I try,” he says wryly, standing up. “Bathroom break,” he apologizes, and wanders off to explore.

There isn’t much to the hollowed-out building. A few cardboard boxes, soggy with rain and seawater, filled with bloated and yellowing papers so faded he can’t make out the print. Some used condoms, which he gives a wide berth, and a few syringes he also avoids. Several isolated piles of spiderwebbed glass, like people just put their empty bottles on the floor and then stomped on them. All the windows are either boarded up or completely open, and every few minutes a breeze comes rolling in off the Atlantic, filling the room with the smell of salt.

He finds the old carousel horse, legless and splintering and ancient but still beautiful, on the third floor. He’s drunk enough to straddle it, and imagine it coming to life beneath him, like a storybook he used to read O when she was little. He’s just picturing it leaping out the gaping window, with him on its back, when Harper stumbles in.

“Holy _shit_ ,” she breathes, staring at the horse, warm and whinnying beneath his thighs. Bellamy almost loses his balance and glares back at her, annoyed at having his daydream interrupted. But she ignores him, staring only at the horse, crossing over to tug at its gnarled brown mane. “How’d you get it to _do_ that?” she asks reverently.

Bellamy stares down at her, confused. “Do what?” he asks, wondering how drunk she could be. He only saw her drinking hurricane mix, but she’s also a lot smaller than him, and he’s not sure when she last ate.

“I saw you move it,” she says giddily, petting at the horse, wooden again. Her hand drifts down to Bellamy’s thigh, thumb gently moving towards his crotch. He feels suddenly nauseas, and leans over the horse’s flank in case he throws up.

“Hey what are—what the hell?” Jasper stops in the doorway, staring at Harper’s hand on Bellamy’s leg. Bellamy jerks away, and the horse threatens to topple. The hem of his shirt snags on a splinter and rips so the bottom flaps loose and open against his stomach, but he doesn’t really care; he’d stolen it from the attic of some drummer he doesn’t remember.

Harper is still looking at him like he’s incredible, which. He’s not sure what to do with that, so he turns towards Jasper, who’s looking at him like he just punched a small kitten. He can’t really handle that either so he turns to the window and says, “I should get going, before O decides to come looking for me.” It’s not really a lie; she did tend to get worried if he was out too late in the city, though he’s pretty sure she knows Ark is safer than Philly. Mostly he just wants to leave.

“Yeah,” Jasper agrees, still hurt and irritated, and Bellamy only sways a little as he rushes downstairs.

Ark is relatively small, but it’s still a pretty sizable walk from the boardwalk to his Gram’s house, and it’s raining now, because this is Bellamy’s life. He hugs his arms as he goes, trying to hurry, but also trying not to slip and fall in the mud as he goes. His boots are thick leather with steel toes; good for kicking the shit out of a crappy ex-boyfriend or some leering frat boy, but pretty bad at gripping the earth and actual hiking.

He’s cutting through a small patch of forest when he hears it—a moan, and it could be an animal, but it sounds human enough for him to stop and look around, blinking rainwater from his eyes. It’s just after midnight, thick with night, but he can see a little by the moon and stars. His eyes have adjusted to the night and as he squints, he makes out a bundle of something against a clump of birch trees. He sees the pale of skin, and darkened yellow of wet hair, and he walks towards it.

In Philly, homeless people were common. Someone always lived in this alleyway, or under that tunnel. He usually had to look away because if he didn’t he’d do something stupid, like give them some of the sweet and sour chicken he was carrying home for his mom, or O’s eggrolls, or even some of the tips he’d made that night.

But there aren’t homeless people in Ark, as far as he knows, and anyway he doesn’t even have any cash or food on him, so he figures the worst that might happen is he’ll help them to the nearest all-night diner and then leave them in a booth.

But when he reaches the stranger, he finds a girl. She looks his age, maybe younger—at least physically. In her eyes, he sees the same sort of weariness that his Gram has, the kind that comes from living several more years than expected. She’s soaked all the way through, and covered in mud. There’s a smudge of it on her jawbone, and Bellamy has to fight the urge to wipe it away.

Then he notices the small tree branch sticking out of her stomach, coated with her dark blood. She’s wearing some sort of brown leather armor—chest plate and shoulder pads tied together and carved to look like leaves. The branch rises out from the middle of it, and Bellamy realizes she’s probably dying.

She’s noticed him too by now, and is staring up at him through her lashes, giving the wry grin of someone about to die. “Have you come to finish me off, then? Well, be quick about it. You won’t get a better chance.” Her accent is strange and foreign, but she seems to speak English well enough.

“What?” Bellamy asks, feeling stupid and still staring at the wound. He’d been mostly fronting with the girls earlier; he’s never _actually_ seen someone get stabbed, and the sight of it is making him nauseas again.

The girl squints up at him and then snorts, incredulous. “That they should send a mortal to do their dirty work,” she snaps, obviously insulted. “Distasteful. We used to have rules for this sort of thing, you know.”

She sounds awfully proper for someone bleeding to death in the wood. Amiable, even. She cranes her neck to look at him better. “Come down,” she orders. “It hurts my neck to look at you.”

Bellamy fights back a grin, because she is a bleeding, tiny blonde girl ordering him around and it’s _funny_. “I don’t take orders from you, princess,” he shoots, but he crouches down anyway. He pretends it’s because standing was hurting his knees. She looks at him, surprised and then wary.

“ _I’m_ no princess,” she mutters, and then winces, glaring down at the branch as though she might make it disappear with pure willpower. Bellamy honestly doesn’t doubt that she could.

“Let me help you,” he offers, reaching towards the branch. But she stills his hand, looking suddenly earnest.

“If you kill me,” she whispers, “Please, do it slowly.” He stares at her dumbly.

“Slowly?” he echoes. It’s a strange last request, but she just presses her lips together grimly and nods.

“It is nothing short of what I deserve,” she assures him, and releases his hand. “Now, make your choice, boy.”

He’s pretty sure she’s not old enough to call him _boy_ , but he ignores it, reaching for the branch. He wraps a hand around it gingerly, but she still winces at the touch. Once, Octavia stepped on a nail and he had to pull it out and soak it in disinfectant because they couldn’t afford to go to the clinic for a tetanus shot. He’d been shaking when he pulled it out, and he’d started at the wrong angle, so it took twice as long and Octavia was crying while trying not to cry. Until now, it was probably one of the worst things he’s ever had to do.

He studies the angle of the branch through her leather plate; he needs to get this right the first time. Then he grips the end with both hands, shifting to kick a leg against the base of the tree for leverage, and _yanks_.

She cries out, but it comes free relatively quickly. He’s sure it still hurt terribly, and he feels like shit about it, but also sort of morbidly proud that he got it on the first try. He studies the stick for a quick moment—the end is tipped with metal, like an arrowhead, but not as finely crafted—before tossing it and turning back to the girl. She’s pressing both hands to staunch the blood, but it’s still seeping, dark and strangely thin, through her fingers.

“We have to bind it,” he says, and slips his shirt off. It’s soaked all the way through by now, and easy to tear once he starts at the rip in the hem. It’s pretty much ruined already, he tells himself, and turns it into a makeshift bandage. “How do you take this off?” he asks, thumbing at the leather plate. He needs to bind her stomach beneath it.

The girl eyes him, and then the bandage. “I didn’t even hear you tear the cloth,” she says so mournfully it makes his heart ache. “There are straps, in the back. Do be gentle; this was a gift.”

Bellamy rolls his eyes and helps her shift up so he can get at the straps. There are a hundred of them, all tiny and knotted tight, and his fingers are wet and less than dexterous, so it takes a while. By the end he’s thoroughly irritated as he tosses the wet armor away, and she’s pretty out of breath. She doesn’t flinch when he thumbs at the edge of her weird tunic thing, which he takes to be permission, so he carefully lifts the cloth until the wound is free and visible, and awkwardly wraps his makeshift bandage around it.

“What do they call you?” she asks as he ties his shirt in place.

“Bellamy,” he says, and stops himself from asking her name. Faeries don’t like to give their names, he knows, though he isn’t sure why.

“I am Clarke,” she says, surprising him. She clearly looks smug about it. “I cannot walk, myself.”

Bellamy eyes her a little; she’s small, and she’s lost a lot of blood. He can probably carry her, if not bridal style than at least in a piggyback. He goes to offer, but she waves a hand.

“It will not be necessary,” she says firmly, as though reading his mind. “I know a kelpie—it will help me, I think.” She reaches and grabs a leaf from the ground, and pricks the skin of her palm on an intricate dagger sheathed at her hip. She smears the blood on the leaf and hands it to Bellamy. “Go down to the stream,” she nods her head a little towards the right. “Drop this in the water and say ‘Clarke of the Unseelie Court asks for your aid.’”

Bellamy stares at the leaf, still a little stricken because _is this seriously happening?_ , but then nods and heads in the direction she’d motioned at. He’s still shirtless, and it’s still raining a little half-heartedly, and he shivers. The stream isn’t far at all, choked by glass bottles and beer cans and other trash. He creeps up to the bank and drops the leaf in the water. It drifts close to the edge, and he’s not sure if it should be further out in the water, so he grabs a stick and pushes it out. Then he stands and, trying not to fumble the words, repeats Clarke’s instructions.

At first, nothing really happens. Then a frog pops out of the water, seemingly floating in the middle of the stream. Bellamy tries to think of what he knows about kelpies—they’re watery horses, he’s pretty sure. He also thinks they drown people, so. Something to look forward to. He’s not sure what a frog might have to do with it all.

But then the frog lifts up, and he sees it’s not a frog at all, but a pair of wet, briny nostrils, and the kelpie pulls itself from the stream. “Where to, boy?” it asks, voice like water rushing from a faucet. Bellamy shakes his head to keep from gaping, and leads it back to Clarke. She’s strapped her armor back on a little haphazardly, and he’s not sure how; she could barely hold her head up a few moments before.

“You came,” she says, pleasantly surprised. Bellamy looks at her, wondering why she would send him to fetch it if she wasn’t sure it would work. “I didn’t think you would, after last time…”

The kelpie kneels down awkwardly so Clarke can scramble up on its back, and then stands. “The favor of an Unseelie Knight is no small thing,” it muses, turning back towards the creek, but Bellamy stands in the way.

Clarke looks down at him with a fond smile. “I am in your debt, Bellamy,” she says. “I mislike not knowing how to repay you.”

Bellamy licks his lips, still a little stunned by everything. “I have questions,” he decides, because what else would he ask for? _Endless fortune_ seems a bit much, and anyway that could easily be misconstrued. She could grant him good luck instead, or enchant the money to turn to leaves when he touches them. No, it’s better to keep it simple, he thinks.

Clarke nods, evidently surprised and a little pleased by his request. Maybe she’d been worried he’d ask for cash. “I shall answer three,” she says.

“Are you a Faerie?” he blurts, because he’s shirtless and soaked and a little scared, so it’s not like she thought he had any cool to begin with. He’s pretty sure he couldn’t impress her if he tried.

She grins widely. “Don’t waste your questions,” she chides, and then she and the kelpie are gone.

Bellamy sneaks back in through the window so he doesn’t have to face Gram. Aurora, he’s not too worried about; she’d probably take one look at him shirtless and soaked, and wink. He sleeps in Octavia’s old bedroom, because it’s smaller than his old one, and he wanted her to have more room. Her ancient collection of glass-eyed dolls judge him silently from across the room. He peels off his muddy boots and soaked jeans, changing into a dry pair of boxers and a G-Force shirt that smells like mothballs. He’s just collapsed onto the small mattress when the door creaks open and Octavia creeps in.

“Scooch over,” she orders, slipping in beside him. He huffs against her hair and she pokes his ribs. “Don’t be a bed hog,” she frowns.

He rolls a few inches so they almost fit, and tries to drift off, but he can feel Octavia thinking beside him. “ _What_ , O?”

“You were gone for a while,” she says softly. Oh. So she _was_ worried. He reaches an arm out blindly and lets it flop against her in a sort of lazy hug. “Meet any cute girls?” she teases.

“Shut up,” he says, and then because he knows she’ll just keep pestering, “Yeah.”

“Whoa, really?” she asks, shocked. He snorts into his pillow.

“You’re such a brat.”

“It’s genetic,” she shrugs. “What’s her name?”

“Clarke.”

“Weird.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “She’s pretty weird. You’d like her, I think. She’s a Faerie.”

“Oh, cool,” she says. “I wonder how old she is. Maybe she knew Shakespeare or something.”

Octavia is the only person that never rolled her eyes or smiled indulgently when Bellamy spoke about the Faeries in Ark. She’d mostly just been upset that she was never around when they showed up. Even now, she’s taking it in stride because she believes her big brother and if he says he met a Faerie named Clarke, he met a Faerie named Clarke.

He really, really loves his sister. “Night, Big-Nose,” he says with a grin. Octavia huffs, predictably.

“Night, Beer-Breath.”

When Bellamy wakes, it’s to his grandmother knocking on his door, telling them to get ready for school. Beside him, Octavia frowns and snuggles closer into the warmth, but Bellamy jus rolls out with a yawn.

“Get up, O,” he says mildly, shaking the mattress so she almost slides off. “Time to get an education.”

“Yeah, good luck with yours,” she smirks. Right—Gram doesn’t know he dropped out. He has his GED—the hardest part had been forking over the forty dollars—but he’s pretty sure even that won’t placate his extremely traditional grandmother.

“You let me worry about that,” he decides, and she makes a face but gets up anyway.

He leaves with Octavia under the pretense of heading to the high school together. He drops her off in the parking lot, before wandering about aimlessly. He’s not really sure what to do in Ark—in the city, he just focused on keeping busy, because when he was busy he wasn’t worrying about rent money or Octavia paying for college or his mom getting alcohol poisoning. But Ark is pretty infuriatingly quiet, and there isn’t much to take his mind off of things.

Things like Clarke, like the blood dripping from her chest like spit, like the smile she’d given him when she rode away. _Don’t waste your questions_. He’s not sure if she was flirting—he’s not sure if Faeries _can_ flirt, but. It sort of felt like it. He hopes, anyway.

He goes back to the woods where he found her, and finds a few bloodstained leaves and the branch-arrow, so at least he knows he’s not crazy. It happened, it was real, _she_ was real. He goes down to the stream, but doesn’t try to call the kelpie. He’s still pretty sure they drown people, and he’s not a Faerie Knight or anything, so there wouldn’t be anything to stop it from dragging him under.

In the end, he heads to Jasper’s trailer because it’s the only other place in Ark he really knows. Jasper’s at school, which he only realizes when he’s about to knock on the door. But then he remembers that Monty isn’t, and knocks anyway.

Mrs. Jordan opens the door with a smile, dressed in a floral housedress, with maroon toenails shining up at him. “Bellamy!” she crows happily—she’d always liked Bellamy, though he’s pretty sure it was only because her son had no other friends. “Come in, dear. Can I get you anything? I made a cobbler—it’s cherry, and they only had the frozen stuff at the Aldi, but the boys like it well enough.”

Bellamy can’t help but smile fondly. When he was a kid, Mrs. Jordan is pretty much what he thought all mothers should be; warm, and kind, and capable of doing things like washing laundry or making cobblers. He’s pretty sure Jasper never had to fish his mom’s head out of a toilet, or light her cigarettes on the gas stove because they couldn’t afford a cheap Bic lighter.

And then he feels shitty, because Aurora’s his mom and he loves her, he does. He just sort of wishes she needed a little less maintenance.

He lets Mrs. Jordan fawn over him for a few minutes, and calmly answers her questions about _The Big City!_ , and she seems so _proud_ when he tells her he got his GED and is thinking of majoring in history—okay so that last bit’s wishful thinking, but. A little bend of the truth never hurt anyone, and he _does_ think about majoring in history, like a lot. It’s basically his second most popular fantasy, right after the one where he marries Charlize Theron.

He’s finishing his cobbler when Monty walks in, blue vest hung tired on his shoulders. He’s obviously surprised to see Bellamy, but pleasant enough, and Mrs. Jordan leaves the two in the small kitchenette to catch up. Monty fetches himself some cobbler and pulls up a stool beside Bellamy.

“So, West Philadelphia, huh?” he asks around a spoonful of fake cherries.

“Born and raised,” Bellamy jokes. “I’ve never seen anyone get stabbed” he tells him, just in case. Monty just raises both eyebrows.

“Me neither.” They finish their desserts in silence. “So, aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

Bellamy shrugs. “GED. It was,” he pauses. “Easier.”

Monty nods, understandingly. “High school’s kind of a shit-storm,” he agrees. Somewhere in the trailer park, someone turns on a lawnmower, and the plates rattle. Monty grimaces. “Want to just hang out in my room?” he offers. “It’s at the back, so we can hear ourselves thinks.”

Bellamy shrugs and follows him down the hall. Monty’s room is the last door, and roughly the size of Gram’s laundry-bathroom hybrid. It’s filled wall-to-wall with clutter, mostly books and video games, and a corner seemingly reserved exclusively for spare computer guts and wires. There’s a marble chessboard—probably the most expensive thing in the room—with only the two knight pieces on it. The white one is closest to the door. Bellamy stares at them, reminded of Clarke, because he’s fucking predictable.

“Jasper and I use them to signal our moods,” Monty says, gesturing to the knights as he folds himself up on his mattress. There isn’t really anywhere else to sit, so Bellamy sits on the floor. There’s a stack of Japanese manga books by his knee, and he picks up the first one. Monty’s watching him pretty carefully as he flips through the book, and soon he realizes why.

Somewhere in the middle, the protagonist—a pretty, blond-haired boy, is strapped to a table being lashed by the antagonist—a pretty, dark-haired wizard. It’s sort of a toss-up whether or not the blond likes it. Bellamy holds up the book with a single raised brow. He’s not really confused, just curious. “You’re gay?”

Monty nods, a little guardedly, and Bellamy wonders if this is what Jasper meant by _different directions_. If anything, now that seems shittier.

“I hope you’re not hoping for a reaction,” Bellamy says mildly, putting the book back. “I don’t think you understand how many gay people live in Philly.” Monty sighs, visibly relieved. “Does Jasper know?”

He nods, grinning, but not like it’s actually _funny_. “We went to a party and I got pretty wasted. I don’t even _like_ him like that, but he was there, you know? And I was drunk, and lonely, and,” he bites his lip, nervous. “I tried to make out with him. He freaked.” He shrugs. “I came out to Mrs. Jordan the next day, but I’m pretty sure she knew already.”

Bellamy nods. “So that’s why you two have been…” he trails off, not sure how to explain without sounding like a dick.

“Weird?” Monty teases. “Yeah. I think he’s convinced I’m going to make a move on him if we’re ever alone together, which,” he rolls his eyes. “I mean; he’s not even my _type_. Way too skinny. And straight.”

“Yeah, that must put a damper on things,” Bellamy says wryly. “So, uh,” he fidgets, not wanting to seem narcissistic, but. Well, he’s curious. “Am I, uh—”

“My type?” Monty finishes, amused. The blush sort of undermines that, though. “Kind of,” he shrugs. “But you’re too straight, too.”

“Damn,” Bellamy deadpans, and they laugh.

Monty has just turned to his computer, when something hard hits Bellamy’s leg. He looks down to see an acorn sitting by his knee, inconspicuously. He glances up at the ceiling, but doesn’t see any holes, and then at the open window across the room. Someone had to have thrown it—or maybe the wind carried it, though he didn’t feel a breeze. He picks the nut up, to find a slip of white peeking out from under the cap. He pulls at it, and it opens up like a lid. The meat has been hollowed out, leaving only the shell, and slip of paper inside.

He takes it out, as Monty taps at the keyboard with his back to him. It’s small, like a fortune cookie slip. The handwriting is black and thin enough to have been drawn with a needle. It says, _Do not trust the White Knight! Atom is dead. We need your help—M &C _

Bellamy folds the note back in the acorn, and stuffs it in his pocket. The White Knight is probably Clarke, he figures. _M &C_—that meant Myles and Charlotte, two of the Faeries he knew as a kid. Atom was the third, but apparently he’s dead, and Bellamy isn’t sure what to make of that. It’s hard to reconcile childhood imaginary friends that would bring him grapes and bits of sea glass with things like _death_. Atom’s _dead_. He tries not to think about it.

When Jasper comes home, they’re still sprawled out in Monty’s room, him at his computer and Bellamy rolled over on his bed with a comic. They’re chatting idly about absolutely nothing, and Jasper stands in the doorway and stares.

“Uh, hey,” he says, clearly feeling awkward and a little confused. Bellamy wonders if he’s still upset about Harper, and figures he should probably sort that out.

He gives Monty a nod, and follows Jasper to the room across the hall. Jasper’s room is only a little bigger than Monty’s, lined with posters for campy Horror flicks, and a few Comic Con costumes. A pair of steampunk goggles hang in a place of honor beside the door. Jasper flops down on his futon, and Bellamy sinks into his beanbag chair.

“Sorry about last night,” Bellamy offers.

“She was hitting on you,” Jasper guesses with a sigh. “Sorry—I know you didn’t do anything, you’re way too honest. I sort of freaked.”

Bellamy isn’t sure about being _way too honest_. His grandmother thinks he’s at high school, and Mrs. Jordan’s convinced he’s some sort of history prodigy. And Harper thinks…well, he’s not sure what Harper thinks. _I saw you move it_.

“Look, I think she’s cool or whatever,” Bellamy flails, trying to reassure him. “But I know you’re into her, so. Plus, I kind of met someone.” That was clearly the right thing to say because Jasper perks up immediately, all thoughts of flighty girlfriends forgotten.

“Already? Who is it? Where’d you meet her? _When_ ’d you meet her—you got here yesterday!” Jasper seems appropriately impressed.

“Last night,” Bellamy grins. “Her name’s Clarke.”

“Like Clark Kent?” Jasper scrunches his nose. “Weird.”

“Yeah,” Bellamy agrees mildly. “She’s different.”

“Different how?” Jasper presses, giddy. “Dude— _dude_ —she’s older, isn’t she? Please dear God tell me you somehow got with a college chick.”

Bellamy snorts, because _older_ doesn’t even begin to cut it. Clarke could be literally hundreds of years old. Thousands. He’s pretty sure Faeries are immortal, but she’d bled a lot, so he’s not _that_ sure. “Yeah,” he nods. “She’s older. Out of school.”

Jasper lets out a whistle of respect. “You are too charming for your own good,” he teases.

“Yeah,” Bellamy huffs. “That’s me. Prince Charming.”

When Bellamy gets home, Octavia’s already at the kitchen table running through flashcards. Gram pokes her head up from the sink as he walks in. “What took you so long?”

“Stopped by Jasper’s,” Bellamy shrugs. It’s not a lie. He tells himself that a lot— _it’s not a lie_. He tries to just offer bits and pieces, and let people come to their own conclusions. It’s worked well for him so far.

Octavia pushes a peanut-butter-bacon sandwich towards him without looking up from her notes, and he swallows a smile, biting into it. “Ho’wah’cool?” he asks as he chews. Gram shoots him a look he pretends not to notice.

“Fine,” O makes a face. “Everyone kept asking if I ever saw a drive-by.”

“Yeah,” Bellamy nods. “They wanted to know if I saw someone get stabbed.”

“Almost,” Octavia points out.

“Almost,” he agrees. Gram looks suitably distraught, and he knows she’ll probably have something to say about it to Aurora when she gets home, but he only feels a little bad about it.

“Any homework for you, young man?” Gram asks, turning back to the dishes and trying very hard not to frown. Octavia snickers but says nothing.

“Nah,” Bellamy says, swallowing the last of his food. “I’m gonna get dinner with some classmates,” he declares, standing. _Not a lie_ ; technically, Jasper and his friends _are_ classmates. Just not Bellamy’s.

“You just ate,” Gram says indignantly, and Bellamy grins.

“Growing boys and all that,” he says, pressing a kiss to her withered temple, and then another to O’s head as she shrinks away.

He meets Jasper and the girls at The Dropship, a kitschy diner near the boardwalk, caught somehow between the impersonation of a fifties soda shop, and a sci-fi prop from the seventies. He slides into the booth beside Jasper and across from Fox, and picks at the curly fries Jasper had already ordered him.

“I didn’t know what you’d want,” he apologizes, but Bellamy waves him off, dipping a fry in some hot sauce.

“Coffee,” he tells the waitress when she comes over. “With enough sugar to give me a stroke.” The waitress smiles a little guardedly, hoping it’ll get her a better tip, and leaves to fetch his order.

“I have to use the bathroom,” Harper declares, so Bellamy and Jasper slide out to let her go. She tugs at Bellamy’s arm before he can sit back down, saying “Let’s talk,” in an urgent sort of whisper, so with a final glance at Jasper—knee deep in a conversation about the latest Star Wars—he follows.

“What did you do?” she asks once they reach the little bathroom alcove. There’s only one, gender-neutral room, and they stand just outside it. “That night, at the pier—I can’t stop thinking about you.” And she looks so distressed about it, not at all like the flirty girl he remembers, that Bellamy feels his face go pale.

“I don’t know,” he swears. “I didn’t mean to—I didn’t even know you were watching.”

She nods, like she’d expected that answer, and then leans in until her mouth hovers just over his sternum. He can feel her breath on his skin, through his shirt, and closes his eyes at the warmth. “I can’t stop…” she trails off, pressing her lips against that spot on his chest, and he just barely manages to pull away, to the side until they aren’t touching.

“Jasper,” he says, a little harsher than he means to, but. It’s been a while since he’s kissed a girl, and Harper is cute and she’s basically coming onto him, and it shouldn’t be _hard_ to say no.

“I know,” she says, sounding close to tears and blinking rapidly. “I don’t _want_ to think about you!”

“What the fuck,” Jasper says, staring hard between the two. Harper chokes on a sob, but she isn’t actively crying yet. Bellamy tries to sink into the floor. He can still feel the acorn burning a hole in his pocket.

“Nothing happened,” he says, but Jasper just looks torn between wanting to hit him, and wanting to cry.

“Bellamy, may I have a moment of your time?” The three turn to find Clarke, dry and absolutely _stunning_ , standing to the side. Now that it’s not tangled and wet, her hair is gold and curled, with a few strands pulled from her face into braids. Her skin is smooth and pale, and she’s wearing a crisp white jacket that falls to her knees. Her legs fall bare beneath it, to a pair of modern riding boots. Bellamy’s mouth goes dry, and even Jasper’s expression has changed to one of mild awe. Harper still looks miserable.

“Uh, sure,” Bellamy nods, edging towards her awkwardly. She still doesn’t really look _human_ , but in the way some super models or actors don’t really look human, just airbrushed and edited to perfection. Her cheekbones look sharp enough to kill, and he hadn’t even known eyes could _come_ in that color.

Clarke pulls out a bundle—his shirt, looking freshly washed and mended, and probably in better shape than it was when he first got it. She smiles up at him, pleased with herself. “Your shirt, back from the dead.”

“Like you,” he jokes, taking the shirt, and she bites back a grin.

“Quite,” she agrees. “Have you given thought to your questions?”

He has, but most of them range from _can Faeries and humans date?_ to _will you go out with me?_ and he doesn’t think he’s ready for all that. So instead he says, “My friends warned me not to trust you.”

Clarke frowns (adorably, which. _Jesus Christ_.) and her gaze flicks to Jasper and Harper, obviously eavesdropping while trying to play it off. “Not, I assume, these friends?”

“Myles and Charlotte,” Bellamy corrects, and Clarke’s face goes stony.

“I killed a friend of theirs,” she says, voice oddly hollow. “Perhaps a friend of yours.”

“You killed Atom,” Bellamy breathes—he’d _known_ Atom was dead, known that Myles and Charlotte wouldn’t lie about something like that, but. It’s different hearing it said out loud. It’s different knowing who killed him. “Why?” he demands, not sure that whatever she could say would make it any more forgivable. Atom, who had looked after Octavia while Bellamy was on a school trip for three days. Atom, who had heard her crying herself to sleep, missing her brother, and had braided flowers in her hair as she’d slept.

“Should I count this as one of your questions?” she asks coldly, and he hates her.

“Yes,” he sneers. “And for my second; how come you’re such a cold-stone _bitch_?”

Clarke flinches, fury scorching her eyes, and he wants to kiss her, and he hates himself. “Very well,” she bites out. “I killed him because my mistress bade me do so—I could not refuse. As for the second,” she pauses. “I am quite sure the answer is relative, and the reasons all complex. Have you a third, or can I be done of you?”

“I have a third,” he growls, and then thinks because he really doesn’t, but he doesn’t want to lose whatever battle this is. “What’s your name?” he decides, feeling clever. Faeries hate giving their names. “Your full name,” he specifies, and Clarke goes impressively blank.

“Clarke Abigail Griffin,” she whispers very softly. Then, “Do with it what you will, but now I take my leave. May our paths never cross henceforth.”

“Well, Clarke Abigail Griffin,” Bellamy snaps, “You can kiss my ass before you go!” He’d only wanted to make her eyes flash again, but instead they cloud darkly and then she’s shoving him around roughly against the wall and yanking at his pants. She presses her mouth briefly to the spot where his back curves into his waist, and then stands. Bellamy stares at her, dazed. He hears Jasper mutter _whoa_.

“That is the nature of servitude, Bellamy,” Clarke bites out. “It is quite literal—there are no metaphors or wry jokes to be played.” She marches out of the diner, as if she hasn’t just _literally kissed his ass_ _in front of everyone_.

“I can see why you like her,” Jasper chirps, awkwardness forgotten. “She’s badass.”

Bellamy grips the acorn in his pocket so hard it imprints on the skin of his palm. “Yeah,” he mutters. He can still feel the burn of her lips against his skin.


	2. If We're Gonna Die, Bury Us Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What’s up?” he asks.
> 
> Monty stutters and then coughs. “You, uh. What’s up with you?”
> 
> “I’m sick,” Bellamy says gravely. “Really sick. Can I get a ride?”
> 
> “To the hospital?” Monty asks dazedly.
> 
> “Kind of,” Bellamy says. “More like, an abandoned accountant firm, to grab payment for a magic demon horse. You in?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Dark Doo Wop by Digital Daggers

When Bellamy gets home, Aurora is sitting where O had been just hours before. She’s on the phone, doodling band names on a spare post-it. She gestures him towards the stove, where a pot of Kraft mac and cheese and some cut up hot dogs is sitting. He dishes himself a bowl and sits across from her, trying to catch a peek at some of the names she’s come up with—he sees _Grounders_ and _The Delinquents_ , but the angle hurts his neck.

“Okay, well if you can get Diana, I’m in,” she says into the phone. “Okay, call me when you know. Bye, chickadee.” She hangs up and grins at Bellamy in triumph. “We’re going to New York!”

Bellamy burns himself on a hot dog. “What?”

“That was Nigel—she thinks she and her new beau are heading a new lineup, and she thinks she can get Diana Sydney! I told her if she does, I’m in.”

Bellamy isn’t sure why he’s so surprised—he’d known from the start that their move here was less than permanent. Aurora liked to spend the least amount of time with her mother as possible. She barely talks to her on the holidays before passing the phone off to Bellamy or O.

But he’d sort of expected their stay to be longer than two or three days. Last time, they’d spent four months in Ark before she’d found B-17 on Myspace and carted them all off to West Philly.  He thinks about Charlotte and Myles, and even Clarke. He’s not really ready to leave, just yet. He hasn’t itched for a cigarette since they left the city.

“Why can’t you just find a band here?” he asks, sounding whiny even to him. Aurora fixes him with a stare. Bellamy hasn’t ever really questioned their rambling lifestyle, before. He refuses to back down.

“I know you like it here,” she says slowly, like she didn’t _actually_ know that, at all. “Nothing’s set in stone yet. But I think you should get used to the idea of New York.” She stands, collecting her post it, and heading upstairs to bed.

Bellamy tosses his food back in the pot, suddenly not hungry. He heads out the back door, towards the acacia tree. It was always his favorite as a kid, and he’d sometimes fall asleep in it and give Gram a heart attack. There’s a fist-sized hole in the trunk, and he and O used to hide little treasures in it. Badly written, cryptic letters to no one, or crushed bits of flowers, or a keychain from their time in DC. Sometimes he’d leave notes for Charlotte, Myles and Atom, and they’d fold them into little paper thorns to let him know they’d seen. They’d fill it with blackberries and grapes for him and O to gorge themselves on.

He climbs steadily into the branches, higher than he ever managed as a kid, until he’s sitting at the top and looking out over the forest. It’s a little after sundown, so he can’t see much, but the air up there is fresher, and he closes his eyes to breathe it in.

There’s a sharp tug on his hair, and he startles. A pair of insect-like eyes stare back at him, tiny fingers holding his nose as the little body flutters in midair. She tips her little iridescent head in consideration, and then pecks the tiny prick of a kiss to his skin. “I missed you,” she says, accusing. Bellamy laughs and scoops her up in his palms, delicately and mindful of her frail wings.

“I missed you too, Charlotte,” he grins. “Where’s Myles? What took you so long?”

Charlotte frowns deeply, skittering away from his touch and flitting around like a nervous hummingbird. “Not safe,” she says. “Not safe, _not safe_! The White Knight knows,” she turns to glare at him. “You told her!”

“I asked her what happened to Atom,” Bellamy says grimly. He itches the skin she’d touched, just some hours before.

“She did,” Charlotte cries angrily. “Ran him through like a piggly, ran him like a fox pup! Horses and hounds and faeries and she was the one to catch him up, nasty.” She’s shivering now, and Bellamy opens the collar of his shirt so she can nestle in against his neck.

“Charlotte, where’s Myles?” Bellamy asks softly, and the little faerie giggles at the feel of his throat rumbling against her cheek.

“With Old Mother Indra,” she says, as if it was obvious. “The Thistlewitch. She is waiting.”

“For what?” Bellamy asks. He’s only met Indra once or twice, as a child—she was always something like a stern parent meant to avoid. She always looked ready to scold him.

“You, silly,” Charlotte laughs, slipping out of his shirt and tugging at his hair. “We go now,” she orders. “Down to the thistles, down to the brine—leave the clocks and iron behind!” She titters at her own rhyme as Bellamy carefully climbs down from the tree. “Fast now, fast-quick,” Charlotte urges as they cross the field. “Musn’t keep them waiting long.”

“Not all of us can fly,” Bellamy quips, picking his way through the brambles as they walk through the wood. The Thistlewitch lives in the creek at the bottom of Gram’s hill.

“Yes, it is a pity,” Charlotte says sadly. “Humans would be so much better with wings.”

Bellamy doesn’t argue—he’s learned by now that all faeries believe humans should be more like them in most aspects.

Indra is mostly made up of an old oak tree, but her kneecaps are pressed shards of glass, and her face is a wad of cobwebs with hollow sockets for eyes and a smooth gaping hole for a mouth. She is sitting with Myles perched on a rock by her side, looking anxious and irritable.

“ _Finally_ ,” he says petulantly, scooting over to make room on his rock for Charlotte. His little satyr legs cross and then uncross nervously as he glances at Bellamy. “You’re all grown up,” he says, a little disappointed.

“Did you think I wouldn’t be?” Bellamy teases with a raised brow. “I am human, you know—I age.” If anything, his words just make Myles shift even more uncomfortably.

“That’s what we are to discuss,” Indra says with her wooden, matter-of-fact voice. Bellamy tenses; he’s still pretty sure she’s going to scold him. “The fact is, you aren’t.”

“Aren’t what?” Bellamy asks, confused.

“Human,” Myles clarifies. “You’re one of us.”

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Charlotte chimes in, but Bellamy’s still staring at the Thistlewitch, waiting to be told it’s all a joke, some new sort of faerie riddle, and once he solves it they’ll give him strange faerie scones and send him off to bed, like when he was little.

“What?” he asks, looking around for the scones.

“You’re a faerie,” Myles repeats, slowly and a little loud, as if he thinks Bellamy must not have heard the first time. “Like us.”

Reflexively, he glances down to his legs to check for hooves, and then his shoulders for wings, and frowns back at them. Indra smiles with her gaping, cobwebbed mouth. “A different fae,” she explains. “But as like us as any of the others are.”

“I don’t understand,” Bellamy says, voice tinged with panic.

But he does understand, of course. He’s always known he was different. Knew there was a reason he could see Charlotte and Myles and Atom, but no one else could—not even Octavia, when Atom was braiding her hair. Knew there was a reason he could make certain things _happen_. Harper and the carousel horse— _I saw you move it._

“How?” he asks, a little breathlessly because _he’s a fucking faerie_. “And why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“We’re telling you now,” Myles says defensively. “You’re a Changeling.”

“A what?” Bellamy thinks back to all his mythology books. He knows the term, but can’t think of its meaning.

“They took the human Bell,” Charlotte chirps, “And put the faerie Bell in its place! Great fun, mad fun, giddy giddy giddy!” Bellamy squints down at her as she flies in circles.

“So,” he pauses. “My mom’s not my real mom?” His voice is a little strained, but he feels like it’s appropriate. “What about O?”

“She’s not one of ours,” Myles sniffs, and Bellamy glares at him.

“She’s one of _mine_ ,” he argues. “How come I look human? And I can touch metal—I can _drive_ —how is that possible?”

“The glamour you wear is thicker than any I’ve seen,” Indra says. “I remember when you first came to my edge of the kingdom.” She sounds sort of fond, which is a surprise. He still doesn’t really trust it.

“Where am I from?” he wonders a little wistfully. He’s had this dream before—where Myles and Charlotte and Atom—back when Atom was still alive—bring him out into the trees and don’t make him go home in the morning. Where he’s not really Bellamy Blake, son of a dive-bar punk singer and some unknown one night stand, high school dropout, relegated to minimum wage jobs and clothes stolen from yard sales and attics. Where he’s not really Bellamy Blake, but someone more important, more interesting.

“Faery, obviously,” Myles scoffs. Bellamy rolls his eyes.

“I _mean_ like, _where_?” he specifies.

“The Seelie Court,” Indra says. “In the south.”

“How do I take off,” he makes a gesture to himself. “ _This_ , glamour? How do I see myself, what I really look like?”

Myles and Charlotte share a hesitant look, but Indra seems not to notice, or else she doesn’t care. “There are many ways,” she says slowly, the same way she says everything. Trees take a while to speak. “A four-leaf clover. A rock with a natural hole in it. Your reflection through a spider’s web.” She shrugs. “But once this glamour is gone, you will never have another so well-molded,” she warns.

“You shouldn’t,” Myles says, seriously. “Don’t take it off—not yet.” He pauses, unsure, and then, “We need your help.”

“Yeah,” Bellamy nods, absently poking at the acorn in his pocket. “With what?”

“The Tithe,” Myles says, like Bellamy should have guessed as much.

“Right,” Bellamy says. “What is that again?”

Indra regards him with some amusement. “The sacrifice,” she says. “On Samhain, the solitary fey are bound by their respective Courts, wherever they might reside. For the Seelie, this usually means a revel and some gold, some drink and dancing. The Unseelie, though, require blood of a mortal. We live in the Unseelie lands.”

“Oka-ay,” Bellamy draws out, still not really comprehending.

“Lorelei will choose you,” Myles explains. “And then at the last minute, we will reveal you as one of us. Everyone will think Lorelei knew, and the Tithe will be incomplete, and we’ll be free!”

“Free for seven years,” Charlotte says happily. “Seven years to flee and fly and find naughty birds nests and tie branches into hair!” She makes a quick spiral over to tug on Bellamy’s ear.

“Will you help us?” Myles asks, pleading.

“Of course,” Bellamy says. These are his friends—have been his friends since before he can remember. He’d do anything for them. “But I want Octavia, my mom, and Gram safe. And Jasper,” he adds as an afterthought. “And his mom, and Monty.” The fae looked among each other, dubious at the long list of names.

“We will do what we can,” Myles says uncertainly, but Indra shakes her head.

“Put my sigil above their doors,” she instructs, breaking off two boughs of thorny, hollow wood from her forearms, and handing them to him. “They will let the others know they are under my protection. It will keep the lesser fae from entering, but I cannot do much against the stronger ones.”

“Thank you,” Bellamy says, tucking the branches safely in his pocket. It was a start.

“You smell like iron,” Charlotte sniffs petulantly into the skin behind his ear. Bellamy swats at her mildly.

“What am I, exactly?” he asks. “What do I really look like?”

“Well you’re Diwata,” Myles offers. “That usually means gray.”

“And pretty,” Charlotte grins. “Girls and boys will fall in love wherever you go!” She titters, but Bellamy shudders at the thought. He thinks of Harper’s teary eyes. _I don’t_ want _to think about you!_

“You should go,” Indra decides, nodding to herself in agreement. “But remember; the footsteps you leave are but shattered eggshells.”

Bellamy frowns. “What does that even mean?”

Indra grins, bits of the cobweb pulling apart like fuzzy teeth. “Time will tell,” she promises. “It always does.”

Bellamy hangs one of the sigils above his Gram’s front door. He wishes he has one for each of the side doors too, but. Hopefully it only takes one per house to do the trick.

Octavia is awake, to his surprise, heating up two packets of hot chocolate, the kind with the little dehydrated marshmallows. She pours half a shaker of cinnamon in his, and two spoons of sugar—he’s always liked things a little too sweet. He wonders if that’s a faery thing.

“What are you doing up?” he asks with a yawn, collapsing down at the table. She shrugs.

“Couldn’t sleep. Jetlag.”

“We’re in the same time zone,” he says, amused. She shrugs again.

“Out with the faeries?” she asks. She’s wearing too-small fuzzy pajama pants that fall just below her knees, and one of his old garage band shirts. She gives him a sly look, passing him his mug. “Or with Clarke?”

“Faeries,” he says, sipping his drink. It’s too hot to drink comfortably, but he doesn’t really care. “Apparently I’m one of them,” he frowns. “I guess I was switched at birth? It was kind of hard to follow.”

Octavia eyes him sharply, as if trying to determine whether or not he’s serious. “You better not be fucking with me,” she warns hotly.

“Language,” he says mildly. “I’m not fucking with you. They told me—Charlotte and Myles and Indra, the Thistlewitch—they said I was a Changeling, and I’m really a fae with some really great glamour.”

“Glamour?” she asks excitedly, slipping in beside him.

“It’s like a mirage,” he shrugs. “Makes me look human.”

Octavia studies his face with a frown. “So what do you really look like?”

“I don’t know,” he admits. “They said gray? But I don’t know if they meant my skin or hair or both. There are some really weird looking faeries.”

“Wanna find out?” she asks, in the way that means that no matter his answer, they’re going to find out. He downs the rest of his chocolate, burning the rest of his mouth, and stands.

“Sure.” She follows him out the door. “Help me find a four leaf clover.”

There are patches of clover throughout Gram’s lawn, and they use the light from his i-pod to search through them. It’s a slow process, and frustrating. After the first forty minutes, he’s desperate enough to just rip a leaf in two and see if it works.

“This is pointless,” Octavia whines. “Wait! Do you have to _find_ a four leaf clover, or just touch one?”

Bellamy frowns. “I didn’t ask,” he admits. “Why?”

Octavia grins. “Lie down,” she commands, and he’s too tired to argue so he lays on his back in the clover. It’s wet and cold, and his shirt soaks through immediately. “Now roll,” she says, and then he _gets it_.

“No way,” he laughs, rolling from side to side in the grass. “This is too _stupid_ —there’s no way it’ll work.”

But then O gets down beside him and they’re both rolling through the grass on their grandmother’s lawn, giddy with cold and lack of sleep and _magic_. When they sit up, they’re both soaked with grass and weeds and clover stuck to their skin and hair and clothes. Octavia looks at Bellamy and her mouth drops into an _o_.

“Bell,” she whispers, reaching a hand up to the skin of his cheek. She fumbles there for a moment, and then _pulls_ , and it feels like a band-aid being pulled off. Something comes away in her hand and she holds it out for him to see. It’s _skin_ , his skin, brown and freckled. He puts up a hand to the patch, and the skin there feels like a fingernail—smooth and a little ridged.

“Is it gray?” he asks when he can breathe again.

“Kind of,” Octavia frowns. “It’s like, pale gray. Like your nails.”

Bellamy holds out his hand to stare at his fingertips, and notices there are some cracks in the skin of his arm. He pulls at them, and they lift away easily, so he can see the gleaming gray skin underneath. It’s the color of mist and when he twists his arm around, the light shifts against it.

“Holy shit,” Octavia breathes, and Bellamy can’t bring himself to scold her.

 _Holy shit is right_ , he thinks, and they pull off the rest of his skin.

Only when his human glamour lies in bits and pieces on the ground does Bellamy realize his mistake. He doesn’t look like himself anymore. He doesn’t really look like a person, or at least not a normal one. He can’t go inside like this, he can’t walk around Ark. The film over his eyes slid out like contact lenses, letting in twice as much light and color as he’d ever seen, and Octavia’s mild shock told him they probably looked just as weird as the rest of him. His fingers each have an extra joint, making them look like curled sticks against his sides. His neck is stretched, his jaw so sharp that it sliced his finger when he touched it. His ears end in modest points that poke through his hair. His hair, it seems, has remained unchanged, which Octavia calls _boring_. He still has freckles, but they’re white now, and blurry—like the spots under a fingernail.

He’s basically a giant fingernail. It’s a lot to take in.

“So what do you think?” he asks shakily when she’s pulled the last of it from his back. “An improvement?”

“You don’t have any wrinkles,” Octavia says, poking at his knees and elbows. “Everything’s totally smooth. Twist to the side a little.” He does and she prods at the skin there. “No lines, nothing. This is crazy.”

“Crazier than that time I rescued a dying Faery Knight in the rain,” he says, “Or crazier than when I made that cow’s milk come out chocolate on the school trip?”

“Both,” Octavia decides. “You’re just crazy in general.”

“Good to know,” he chirps, still feeling nauseas and wondering _how the hell_ he’s going to get away with looking like this until Halloween.

Halloween, which is in two days. When he has to pretend to be human, so he can be almost sacrificed by a bunch of rabid faeries.

O’s right. It’s pretty crazy.

At dawn he decides to sneak out, so Gram and Aurora won’t see him. “If they ask, just say I went to read at the school library before class,” he shrugs. Just because he can’t lie, doesn’t mean his sister can’t.

“I could come with you,” she offers. “You shouldn’t do this alone.” Bellamy presses a kiss to her head.

“Cover for me,” he says, and then heads out into the woods.

The walk to the kelpie’s stream seems longer when he can’t follow along the road, but he makes it there by mid-morning. Remembering Clarke’s words, he cuts his palm on Indra’s second sigil, and wipes the blood on a leaf. At least he still bleeds red. It’s a small comfort.

Dropping the leaf on the water, he musters up his most professional-sounding voice. “I’m Bellamy, of no Court,” he says, “And I need your help.”

He waits, scuffing at the earth a little and trying not to feel stupid. Finally, the stream erupts into ripples, and the frog appears in the middle. Not a frog, he remembers, but the snout. The rest of it sprouts up quickly, and it wades over to the land, water dripping from its slick dark flesh.

“The Unseelie Knight’s companion,” it remembers, and Bellamy fights the urge to correct it.

“My name’s Bellamy,” he says. He’s pretty sure fae aren’t supposed to just announce their names, but he’s also pretty sure _Bellamy_ isn’t even his real name, so. Anyway, they need the whole name to control him.

“I am Maya,” the kelpie says happily, like it doesn’t get many chances to introduce itself. Bellamy studies it curiously.

“You’re a girl?” he asks, trying to sneak a peek beneath its flank.

“Kelpies have no gender,” Maya explains, “But for some, we prefer one to the other.”

Bellamy nods. As far as faery logic goes, that actually makes pretty good sense. “I need to know how to glamour myself,” he says, and Maya eyes him carefully.

“What will you give me?” she asks.

Bellamy shrugs. “What would you like?” He’s not going to agree to anything right away—he’s still convinced kelpies drown people.

“I too would like a companion,” Maya says. “To thrash with me beneath the water. Humans thrash so beautifully.” She sounds almost wistful, and Bellamy tries not to look too horrified.

“Right,” he clears his throat. “So, any companion will do?”

Maya shrugs. “I will have to see to confirm, but,” she nods. “Yes, I believe so. It has been so long since I have been able to hunt—so long since I have shared my water with another.”

Bellamy isn’t sure if she’s just lonely, or if she’s homicidal. He decides not to ask. “I’ll work on it,” he says, and Maya dips back into her stream.

He already has a pretty good idea of which companion to bring, but he’ll need a car, and he doesn’t have one. Gram does, but he’s not about to ask to borrow it, looking like a weird sentient fingernail. Plus she thinks he’s in school.

He tries to think of who else he knows with a car, and then tries to think of someone else, because he _really_ probably shouldn’t bring another human into his weird freaky fairytale life. But he can’t, so he sets out.

Monty’s convenience store is only two blocks from the trailer park, but he still drives every day because his car is basically his child, and he doesn’t have any other excuse to show it off. It’s a dusty orange, classic Seville, with more rust than paint, and the roof caves in a little, and the cloth on the inside sags like baggy skin. But he loves it, and he’s on his lunch break, eating a pudding cup on the hood when Bellamy walks up.

Bellamy has to admit, the disbelief and utter _shock_ in Monty’s eyes—and the way he drops the pudding cup—is pretty satisfactory. He’s wearing the hoody O wrapped him up in that morning, and it’s tugged up over his head, but it’s sort of hard to hide gleaming gray skin and a pair of spoon-silver eyes. He grins widely at Monty before hoisting himself up on the hood beside him, wincing at the feel of metal burning beneath his jeaned thighs.

“What’s up?” he asks.

Monty stutters and then coughs. “You, uh. What’s up with you?”

“I’m sick,” Bellamy says gravely. “Really sick. Can I get a ride?”

“To the hospital?” Monty asks dazedly.

“Kind of,” Bellamy says. “More like, an abandoned accountant firm, to grab payment for a magic demon horse. You in?”

“Definitely,” Monty nods, suddenly in game-mode. He tosses his trash in the can, and then runs in to fake some excuse to the other clerk before rushing back to his car. He has to open the back door for Bellamy, who slides into the middle seat so he doesn’t touch the metal sides. He’s breathing through his nose because the stink of iron and gas are making him lightheaded. “Where to?” Monty asks, and Bellamy directs him to the boardwalk.

Along the way, Monty asks very few questions, obviously trying to be polite, but Bellamy tells him everything anyway. It feels good to get it all off his chest—he’d had to skim over some of the Clarke details with Octavia, because she’s _his sister_ , and he wasn’t about to tell her a gorgeous Faery kissed his ass in some diner.

“So what are we bringing Ma—the kelpie?” Monty asks. He doesn’t really want to affiliate some murderous horse with having actual feelings.

Bellamy grins, leading him up the stairs. “You’ll see—it’s perfect, seriously.”

Monty stares at the crippled wooden horse dubiously. “ _Perfect_ isn’t really the word I’d use,” he muses, but he helps Bellamy lug the thing back downstairs, and then strap it to the roof of the car with some bungee cords left over from when Mrs. Jordan had gone through a car-safety phase, and forced Monty to keep anything and everything that could be useful in an emergency stuffed in his trunk.

“She hid a _pick axe_ in there when I wasn’t looking,” he grouses, and Bellamy snorts, immediately regretting it when a fresh wave of metal washes in through his nose. Monty glances at him worriedly in the mirror. “We’re almost there,” he says, and speeds up a little.

They drag the splintering horse down to the stream, and Bellamy doesn’t even have to slice his hand open again, he’s so scratched up by the wood. He brushes his palm on a leaf, drops it, and repeats the words while Monty watches from what he’s decided is a safe distance. He’s looking hopeful but a little reserved—Bellamy told him about the whole drowning thing.

Maya shows up quickly, catching sight of the horse and approaching it with a pleased whinny. “It has no legs,” she says, but she doesn’t sound sad about it.

“It’s beautiful anyway,” Bellamy argues, and she nods.

“More this way, I think,” she decides, tipping her head. She huffs at its flank. “The flaw brings out the beauty.”

“So you’ll teach me?” Bellamy presses, and Maya shifts immediately into his mirror image, fingernail skin and all.

“The payment is acceptable,” she says with his voice, and then turns to Monty. “If you would also like to learn, you must make it worth my while.”

Monty pales and stutters. “I’m not letting you drown me,” he frowns.

Maya laughs with Bellamy’s laugh. It’s incredibly unnerving. “Pity,” she says, turning back to Bellamy. “What would you like to know?”

“How to look human,” he says. The rest can come later; for now, he needs to put the mirage back in place, at least until the Tithe. Probably even after then, if he doesn’t want his mom and Gram kicking him out, horrified. At least O would probably bring him food and blankets.

“Such a trifle,” Maya clicks his tongue. “Feel your magic—concentrate on it, on covering yourself and molding it to look how you want.”

It sounds like it should be harder, but he pretty much instantly feels the magic—or at least what he thinks is magic. It feels like pins and needles cupped in his hands, and then he pictures it spreading over him, turning him brown and freckled and wrinkly (in certain places), his eyes going almond and brown. He hears Monty gasp a little, and figures that’s probably a good sign.

“You’re you again!” Monty crows happily, and then flushes. “Not that, I mean, I know you were still _you_ , but—”

“It’s okay,” Bellamy interrupts, studying the human skin on his arm. It looks pretty much the same, but he can feel how thin and fragile it is, nothing like the glamour he had before. He can still sort of see his true color and the extra joints out of the corner of his eye. “I wasn’t.”

“It is adequate,” Maya notes mildly, but he gets the feeling that coming from a kelpie, that’s quite the compliment. “Now try to undo it.”

 

Monty’s driving him home when Bellamy sees the lights. He has his head pressed against the cool glass, breathing shallowly. With the glamour, the stink of metal is a little more bearable, but not much. They’re passing Mount Weather Cemetery when he sees it—little lights bleeding through the mounds of earth in the hill. He has Monty stop and pull over, so he can get a closer look.

They press their ears to the ground where the lights shine brightest, and hear choruses of harps and flutes and dreary cellos echoing through.

“That’s got to be Faery,” Bellamy whispers excitedly. He’s always wanted to see Faery, ever since hearing the stories from Charlotte and Atom and Myles, and now he finally _can_. He looks at Monty doubtfully. “I’ll only be a minute,” he promises. “Don’t follow; I don’t know how safe it’ll be for you. It’s probably not safe for _me._ ” Monty nods seriously, and watches as Bellamy hunts for the flap of brown grass he’s heard Charlotte mention before. He kicks at four different patches before one flops open, and then he crawls inside.

He takes off his glamour before entering, just in case, and it’s like a fresh shower washing his skin. Inside the hill is basically exactly what he’d expect from a faery party—lots of dark, macabre music and dark, intimidating cakes and wines and dark, intimidating fae in crooked costumes dancing and chattering throughout the room. At the front of the revel sits a throne, and on it a dark-skinned, dark-haired Faery. She’s stunning, with a flowing dress made of roses, and a thin pewter crown. At either side of her stand Faery Knights—one pale-skinned, dark-haired man with a beaked nose and impassive eyes, and Clarke.

Bellamy tries not to stare, but it’s difficult. She’s as pretty as he remembers, but she’s wearing her armor again, and that tunic, with a pair of old-fashioned leather boots that rise against her thighs. There’s a sword at her hip, and she reminds him of every badass renaissance painting he’s ever seen.

He’s pretty sure he has a type, and she’s exactly it, and that’s _terrible_. He doesn’t _want_ to like her.

 _She killed Atom_ , he reminds himself.

He tries to get close enough to spy on her without being noticed. After all, she’s never seen him in this form. She knows him as some unlucky human guy that happened upon her in the rain. He finds a spot in the shadows just a few feet from her right, and settles in right as the Faery Queen speaks.

“Clarke,” she says with a false sort of politeness that makes his teeth hurt. “I believe you’ve recently run into some trouble with the solitary fae. Come, tell us of your escape.”

Clarke’s face is impressively blank, but from his angle, Bellamy sees a muscle in her jaw tick. She’s _pissed_. It looks good on her. “I was foolish,” she admits.

“Quite,” the Queen agrees. “I understand I have a mortal boy to thank for your presence here tonight.” She is very clearly teasing Clarke, poking between her ribs and yanking her hair. Seeing how much I might take for the Knight to snap. Bellamy hates her.

“Yes,” Clarke answers, voice clipped and shoulders tensed. Bellamy feels his stomach coil—does she really hate him that much?

“Well he must be a fine boy,” the Queen smiles meanly. “Tell us about him.”

“He found me in the wood,” Clarke says slowly, choosing her words. “He said he is known to the solitary fae. He has the Sight. He is a clever boy, and a kind one.”

Bellamy’s stomach uncoiled, and he’s pretty sure his heart is skipping but he doesn’t care. _A clever boy and a kind one_. Does she know her voice softened when she spoke about him?

Evidently, the Queen caught it. “I rather like the sound of him,” she decides. “You will bring him here on Samhain, to be our Tithe.”

“No,” Clarke barks, and Bellamy’s blood runs cold as the hall goes quiet. Everyone is turned to her, surprised and a little gleeful—as if readying for a fight. He sees the regret in her eyes almost instantly, but the Queen only smiles.

“If he is known to the solitary fae, it will serve as a message to them; not to break my toys.” It’s a jibe to Clarke, calling her a toy, but the Knight doesn’t seem to care. She’s gone pale with distress, and a little resignation. She thinks he’s going to die, and she’s upset by it.

 _She killed Atom_ , he reminds himself, but it isn’t working like it usually does. He can still feel her lips on his skin, even when he rubs at the spot.

“You may leave me,” the Queen declares. “Cage is here from my niece’s court—I believe he has a message from your brother.” Clarke visibly straightens, the beginnings of hope blooming in her face. “Perhaps I shall relay it to you,” the Queen picks at her nails disinterestedly. “If you learn to behave.”

Clarke stiffens again, giving a curt bow before heading straight for the shadows where Bellamy is hiding. She passes without glancing at him, and he lets out a breath. He’s still sure she wouldn’t recognize him, but she also wouldn’t be pleased to find him eavesdropping.

A new Knight steps up to the throne, a tall man with pale skin and dark hair brushed back thickly with some sort of oil. His grin is wide and toothy and mean, and his bow is more of a mockery. “My Lady,” he slimes.

“Rise, Cage,” the Queen says fondly. “What news have you brought from my niece’s Court?”

“Dreary talk of comforts and festivals,” he drones. “I must confess; it is good to be home for the Tithe.” The Queen hums in agreement. “A certain young man did ask me to pass a message to his sister,” he gloats. “The Cold Knight herself. It reads; _Do not dishearten in that wicked hill, you are not alone._ Quaint, isn’t it?”

“Indeed,” the Queen says. “Would you call this hall a ‘wicked hill’?”

Cage grins. “Merrily.”

“And of our Tithe?” the Queen asks. “What think you of the chosen?”

“I think you have chosen wisely as ever, my Lady,” Cage strokes his chin. “It should serve as a lesson—both to the fae, and your untrustworthy Knight.”

Bellamy startles as sharp fingers dig into his shoulder and spin him around. “What are you doing?” Clarke hisses, and for a moment he’s sure she knows who he is. “This is no place for a solitary fae!”

He only relaxes a little—a large part of him wants to tell her, and let her know that he heard her, and ask what she’s doing next Friday, but that probably won’t go very well. Instead he smirks like a fae. “And where do you think my place should be?” he teases. “Your bed, maybe?” He nearly flinches at the terrible line, but the anger and shock in Clarke’s eyes make it worth it.

“You _are_ impudent,” she chides with no real heat. “Be gone with you—you will not be leading me to your tree tonight. You’d best leave before Lorelei catches you.”

“Or what?” Bellamy taunts, still wondering about the tree comment. Maybe it’s a Diwata thing. “She’ll make me forget the last hundred years?”

“She may see us together and decide I have some fondness for you,” Clarke warns, not at all affectionate. “And she might decide it would be fun to watch my face while she has very bad things done to you in front of me.” Bellamy has the distinct feeling this particular thing has been done to Clarke before, and he hates the Queen even more.

“I’ll go,” he agrees, but. Well, he is a fae. “But first, you must kiss me.”

“I have no time for your trickster games,” Clarke says, flustered, and yeah it’s not his best come-on, but. He likes seeing her blush. He likes _making_ her blush even better.

“We’re fae,” he points out. “We have all the time.”

Clarke considers him for a moment, and then grabs his collar roughly before leaning up to press her mouth to his. It’s softer than he thought it would be, and warmer, and _wetter_ , like she’d just licked her lips. It’s also a lot quicker, and then she’s pulling back and he’s staring down at her dazedly. He doesn’t think he’s imagining the breathiness of her voice.

“There,” she whispers. “Now go.” Bellamy nods, and slips out through the hole she points out to him, pulling himself back up on the hill. The sky is orange-red with the setting sun, and he heads towards Monty’s car.

The keys are still in the ignition, hazard lights blinking, but Monty isn’t there. Bellamy circles the hill, and then the whole cemetery, before he comes across the patch he’d entered through. It’s pulled open, even though he knows he’d closed it after him, but when he reaches a hand in, all he feels is soft soil. He presses an ear to the earth, but hears no music. The lights are gone. He yells Monty’s name into the grass, though he know he won’t hear him.

Monty’s stuck in Faery.


End file.
